Monday Magnificence: A Win for the Ages

I have spent much of the last two years inside this House of Georges being a crabby prick. That's not what I aimed for, initially. Honest. I'm not asking for any pity parties here, but life just ain't that easy when your sports teams seldom give you anything positive about which to write. When your Sunday is miserable, and that bleeds into your Monday, Tuesday, and sometimes Wednesday, and that happens in more weeks than not, you become a very miserable human being. There are two sides to yesterday's 24-27 overtime win against the Steelers at Arrowhead, and they are this: 1) It's important to not get too hyped up about one win. Period. Exclamation point. Etc. 2) As much as I'd like to pipedream about running the table, and stealing a division win, I know that the reality of the optimistic side of things is nothing more than this: That was, regardless of all details, a great win, the best victory this franchise has seen in a long damn time. A quick expansion of that second aspect, after the jump.


In 2006, the Chiefs lost to the Bengals in the home opener, gave a valiant effort in Denver in an overtime loss the following week, destroyed the 49ers in week three, and handled the Cardinals in week four. In the second quarter of the season, they had their Passion-Party embarrassment, defeated the Chargers, Seahawks, and Rams. For the third they dropped games to Miami and Cleveland, but beat the Raiders and Broncos, and in the fourth they lost to Baltimore and San Diego, but downed Oakland and fended off Jacksonville, in that epic New Year's Eve Day where no team has ever needed more help from more teams to get into the post-season, and gotten it.

There were some borderline good wins that season, but there were almost as many games lost that shouldn't have been.

Year two of the Herm Edwards regime went, uh, much worser:

After dropping two to Houston and Chicago, KC beat the Vikings and Chargers to even things up. They then lost to Jacksonville, but beat Cincinnati and Oakland before going on an epic nine-game losing streak, including a sweep at the hands of Denver, and season-concluding losses to the Lions and Edwards' former team in the Jets. All of those losses came after the bye.

The 2008 season is, of course, still fresh in everyone's memories: One home win against Denver, and one road win against the Raiders. Everything else was a loss, and most of them were not even close, save for the pair of San Diego games, which were both decided by a point. For the record, they got destroyed by Atlanta, Carolina, and Buffalo.

Through 10 games this year, the Chiefs have managed to contend in most every game, save the whooping dropped on them by Philadelphia, which was a 20-point loss, that, in my opinion, signified a lesson from Coach Haley for his players. One that can basically be summed up as "I don't care how bleak things look, this team will run the damn football."

Ultimately, it goes without saying that this run of 58 professional football games has been largely terrible. Not only is the number of losses overwhelming, but there aren't really any significant victories in there. You could make an argument for the final game of 2006, the win against Jacksonville that got the Chiefs into the playoffs, but what's the point, if you're just going to get embarrassed the following week to the eventual champions.

Yes, it's always fun to beat Denver, but nine years without a road win against them really takes the fun out of that.

So there's yesterday's game. Yesterday's overtime victory against the defending champions is, in my opinion, the most important win this club has earned in 58 tries. It's possible that we can look at the 2005 season, and make the stretch even longer, but that was a 10-6 season, so there's at least some positive in that fact alone.

Fifty-eight games, though. Fifty-eight games to get one significant win. I don't care who you are, that's darn brutal right there. Feels great to write about a win that means something, even if that something is on a scale smaller than winning Super Bowls.

(photo courtesy of The Kansas City Star)
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Monday Night Meltdown

Well, that was just darn fantastic. Really. Splendid, even. Nothing better than to watch the Denver Broncos lose one of its 12 home, eight prime-time football contests in such humiliating fashion.

To Denver's credit, their pass rush stayed alive, getting to Big Ben Roethlisberger and generating a fumble, one that was returned for a touchdown. Beyond that? They were terrible. Terrible shreds of yellow-and-black towels. And Pittsburgh's pick six? Serves McDoogs right for drumming up something as gay sounding as "Wild Horses." But, I have two points to make, points I've been saying since the season was a couple of games underway, and I'll share them with you, after the jump.

First, it is now officially time to remove the words "shutdown" and "corner" from any vicinity wherein one finds Champ Bailey's name. He's still one of the better defensive backs in the game, but he is far removed from any sort of a shutdown variety. He got owned, schooled, and worked over tonight time and time again.

Second, is the Denver schedule. Deny it all you want, Denver: Your early portion of the 2009 schedule was soft. You won by a stroke of luck to open the season against Cincinnati. You then beat Cleveland (now 1-7), Oakland (now 2-6), Dallas (now 6-2) in a win that Tony Romo handed you on a silver-and-blue-starred platter, New England (now 6-2) in a win that you certainly deserve credit for, albeit you know your coach got way the eff up for that contest, and San Diego (now 5-3) which was an impressive road win.

Well, that's ridiculous, you say. Four of those six teams are +.500. We dominated in all of those wins.

Fine, fine. Say your piece. My point, though, is that you went on the bye, and came back to face Baltimore at home and host Pittsburgh. You dropped both of those contests, were outscored 58-17, and here, in your effort this evening, saw your coveted game manager toss three picks and couldn't even generate a rushing first down in the entire game. But hey, at least Brandon Marshall had some 10 catches, and the announcing crew got to say "Ryan Clady is special" half a dozen times.

Next week you travel to Washington. Guaranteed win, right? Hell, even the Chiefs beat them. But wait. What if Danny and Jimmy pick up Larry Johnson, and he's looking to prove himself to the world, and has a chance to do so against a team he probably doesn't care for too much. Not that he cares for anyone not nicknamed L.J., but you see my point. Then you host the again hot-on-your-heels Chargers, who'll be hungry for revenge, and the Giants, who've lost four straight, but have this week off and a home game against Atlanta to figure it all out. And then you come to Arrowhead for the first of your two losses to Kansas City.

Granted, I know you didn't have immense expectations for this season, but if you're not a tad concerned about that rickety wheel you hear, allow me to tell you you should be.
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